Maybe they learned this from banks? The ranch I live on was once the property of very wealthy and successful business owners. A couple who owned some of the best wineries in California. Due to a one season where some of their grapes were destroying they lost some money. So an attorney at the bank slithered up to them and suggested a bank loan, which they didn’t need. The offer was enticing so they took the bait.
In small print was a clause: “the bank decides when the grapes are released from cold storage for sale”
The bank decided.....They decided to release the grapes when they were rotten and worthless bankrupting this beautiful family’s business.
This happened in the 80s when their kids were all growing up. At least the parents had their kids to care for them because they ended up on food stamps and welfare.
Bank of America also tried to pull this on my middle-class friend who immigrated from Mexico and did really well for his family. They tried to steal his home by offering him a refinance deal.
That's nothing. When the FHFA took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it sold many mortgages to third party lenders at discount rates. Although much of the lending was toxic, there were also huge numbers of customers who never missed their payments, yet still saw their houses sold out from under them at unpublicised auctions at discount rates leaving them in negative equity- often to a division of the lender itself or one of their corporate friends.
As far as I'm aware, it wasn't widely reported. I only know about it because a few small content creators on YouTube published online at a time when the algorithm didn't prevent viewers from seeing their work. A few brave judges denied standing to the third parties in local courts, but as a whole it went largely unreported as a governmental cronyism immiserated American homeowners in a quiet national scandal.
Coincidently, it's incredibly difficult to find details on this subject on most search engines or browsers. You really have to know what you're looking for in advance.
Ditto. Whatever politics dictate people may think about Jan 6th, there was a little known article released by Reuters in the aftermath which showed that of the key instigators, no less than 119 had either lost homes or businesses in the aftermath of 2008. Having seen politicians avoid helping them because of 'moral hazards' whilst simultaneously arranging a taxpayer funded bailout for big banks, it's easy to see how they might have seen DC as an existential threat and Trump as a potential saviour.
I'm not saying I agree with them on the latter point.
I'm mostly a civic libertarian now- and have long since become politically homeless here in the UK. My dad was American. If I ever reactivated my American citizenship, I would probably vote libertarian, although I don't agree with all aspects of economic libertarianism.
My main point would be that most of the Western Advanced Economies are in massive need of dynamic overall of government. The problem is that most people don't realise just how salient Jerry Pournelle's quote about Iron Bureaucracy is. It's almost impossible for amateur politicians to get rid of an entrenched civil service bureaucracy, but it might be possible to reallocate them to become more efficient, useful, and most important of all, get them serving the citizens rather exerting rule over them. It would require a very deft touch with incentives.
The best place to start in the US would probably be switching to a PAYE system and rationalising all welfare payments into a single negative income tax system. This would remove the welfare income deadzone. This would mean that 90% of citizens would never have to talk to the IRS for most of their life. In the UK, most employers tend to somewhat overpay PAYE taxes as a means of never having to deal with the Inland Revenue. Most people tend to get a nice little cheque in the post once a year- their tax refund. It's usually not that much, unless you've changed jobs.
A little dirty secret is that many of these wineries in Napa and Sonoma get their grapes from the San Joaquin valley. That is why they lived here in the San Joaquin valley several hundred miles away from Napa.
This is just one of the wineries my friends The Merzoians owned. Named after his wife The other winery equal in size was named after his sister in law. Grapes were grown here in the valley at their old ranch where I now live. We own part of it with their son who managed to hold on to part of this ranch.
Sounds lovely. My wife (girlfriend, at the time) and I took a trip up Sonoma and down Napa in '02. we liked Sonoma much more. Also, there was a winery called Viansa that we loved. I don't think it's there anymore, at least not under that name.
Sounds a bit like the Royal Bank of Scotland scandal. Because of the levels of toxic debt on their books during 2008, they instructed managers servicing perfectly healthy businesses to put their business customers under managed loan provisions, with extortionate fees. They then proceeded to sell the businesses at auction and buy them themselves at rock bottom prices, or asset strip them. The whole fiasco made business-mindful Brits incandescent with rage. The Scots used to have a great reputation as bankers. As with the Enlightenment, the Scots were key to the success of the entire British Financial Sector.
Fascinating, thank you! At least they got busted! Here in the states banks are doing this and in silence. And most people are in shock this is happening.
This is precisely why I want to leave Canada, and why I'm determined to resettle in Japan, there's none of this funny business out there, especially towards us foreigners. I intend to grow some grapes and tomatoes and potatoes, just as a hobby and to save money. I don't know as much about that stuff, but my partner knows a ton (she's a farmgirl, who knows about farming, whereas I know about berries, meats and so we're a pretty good match).
Hate the commie creed, screw 'em. Got no use for them.
The left isn't one uniform thing. Might appear so due to most of it being appointed, co-opted, bought and sold like everything these days. Same as the right.
Worker owned factories have been tried, and still are. But it's hard for them to be competitive, both due to unethical competition and lawfare.
The left is a complex phenomenon resulting from the interplay of a variety of movements and social forces. It both is, and is not, one thing, depending on the level of analysis. but I get your point.
I do not doubt the issue of lawfare and other unethical practices. That should be dealt with somehow. The solution, though, is not to allow those to continue and simultaneously keep the redistribution engine going. That is the worst of both worlds.
That's not true. Some sectors, like electrical goods, are fiercely competitive- but anyone could set-up a branded T-shirt company. Mondragon is the largest worker owner cooperative in the world. When they were forced to shutter their electrical goods division, they shed 3,000 jobs- but were eventually able to rehire all but 60 of the original employees.
I didn't claim it's impossible. I'll refrain from having a current opinion on Mondragon since I didn't know about it, haven't really looked into it, and it also seems like a rather special case.
I did claim it's hard, I'd say very hard even in the best possible conditions. It's against ruthless competition, including multinationals who tend to become monopolies and laws that generally favor big business. It's also harder to cooperate than being dictated, at least with currently prevailing mindsets. Especially if we add trying to be ethical; among the workers themselves, and into choosing where to get needed materials/tech from and sales practices.
It's funny: one of the Bible's Ten Commandments is "Don't steal", yet the human mind is adept at rationalizing almost anything as "not stealing" when it obviously is. I think it's even written somewhere in the income tax code, that it's "voluntary". Kinda like when a thief sticks a gun in your face and says, "If you voluntarily give me your wallet, I won't shoot you."
I have heard that thing about the tax code. I suspect the courts have ruled that "voluntary" refers to how you file, revealing your info, etc., not to whether you have to pay taxes or not. Total scam either way.
I think this sort of thing is a good line of attack in a larger all-fronts effort. Personally, I prefer my own newly chosen exist-and-build front. Together, we will slowly erode their edifice until one day, our happy descendants will frolic in its dusty ruins.
Marxism, socialism, communism, fascism, progressive-ism, state-ism and all the rest are born from one innate ideal. That is to curtail and destroy freedom for the citizen. All of these are various methods of control freakism. Even capitalism could make the list if it becomes perverted enough.
Most people, myself included, have never had any true freedom and therefore it is difficult to know what we are missing. And government is there to always make sure we don't.
And narcissism. Let's not forget the endless opportunities to virtue-signal, to cram more food into the bottomless gullet of the narcissistic dragon within.
Marx’s mother’s family were extremely wealthy and influential industrialists, and married into the Philips family. Also related to Cohens and Rothschilds. Marx’s wife was from wealthy aristocrats. The stories about them being poor are not believable.
He was in fact bankrolled by his wealthy industrialist uncle to subvert the proletariat and to control the opposition to those wealthy industrialists.
Now, I take no issue with honest commerce. But that’s not what most humans are being repressed by.
The issue is the force & fraud used by the extravagantly wealthy class of global monopolists to prevent any competition from the rest of us.
And that is what Marx’s purpose was. Fraudulently protecting his family’s monopoly on resources and the means of production.
"Now, I take no issue with honest commerce. But that’s not what most humans are being repressed by.
The issue is the force & fraud used by the extravagantly wealthy class of global monopolists to prevent any competition from the rest of us."
—It takes a while for us conservatives to realize that—we're so accustomed to reflexively defending business against the onslaught from the left. But I did come around eventually.
*They* may claim to want worker-ownership of the means of production, however that specific claim is a little more than a means to network, propagandize and recruit.
Reality dictates that workers are generally responsible for showing up and working their 8-10hour daily shift.
Ownership, is in stark contrast, a 24 hour, on-call position, upon which everyone downstream depends and holds to account. The owner insures the weekly paychecks exist to exchange for those daily shifts.
*They* reject objective reality in exchange for non-specific, circular ideobabble and don’t want to work at all for anything.
*They* aren’t motivated by ambition, by accomplishment or by merit.
*They* are motivated primarily by envy and jealousy.
‘They* covet that which they falsely perceive to be entitled, thus
I am faced with a problem, though. All my knowledge, training, experience, and analysis tell me that the left are dangerous, and that we mustn't forget that for a moment. But it is also becoming clear that we have even greater enemies who are neither left nor right, but simply out for total dominion for themselves and submission (and population reduction) for us. And so every time I am compelled to write about the left, I have to decide whether to forebear in favor of looking for solutions and ways to exit and build a new world, so we can all escape our would-be overlords. (Granted, those would-be overlords probably mostly have leftish instincts, but still, they are a different animal.)
It is indeed. And not just the communists. We should be wary of anyone who needs to impose their way of life on others. Persuade, sure. But force? Never good.
The irony is it would be a lot easier to set up a worker owner factory if not for governmental regulatory barriers introduced over the past 70 years in virtually every advanced economy. Government requires a whole legion of specialist workers to meet its requirement. Mondragon was set-up in 1956. It's a Basque cooperative which employed 79,00 people last time I checked. They are best construed as a form of community capitalism. Both the CEO and the senior financial grades earn five times as much the median employee, but are lauded as heroes in their community, paid in psychic profits.
The irony is it would be impossible to set-up such a business these days. It would be incredibly difficult to set-up Isthmus Engineering- and despite press releases to the contrary, they were actually founded in 1980. They only employ forty people.
1. Workers are setting up co-ops, more than ever before.
2. Workers who have been underpaid for decades lack personal financial resources to establish or purchase an existing business, which makes doing so difficult without other resources that are mostly not available. Or the vulture capitalists shutting down the established business simply refuse to sell it.
3. The silly "Socialists will steal everything" rhetoric has grown tiresome, especially given it's usually hauled out by people whose only contact with the subject has been through media. That, in turn, is a cobbled together fairy tale that invariably ignores all the successful instances of socialism to focus on instances of authoritarianism that were at bottom no worse than those occurring under Capitalism on a regular basis. Like this essay.
You and others' obsession with the left is becoming a turn-off, just when we - of all stripes - need to be uniting. The joke is Americans don't even know what the left is.
I have some sympathy with your point of view. A few years ago, I would not have. I have become aware that there is a far greater threat, and that ultimately, we do need to unite against it.
Still, there are fundamental moral problems with the entire ideological underpinning of leftism, and these are things that human beings do need to become aware of and move beyond. Many are, and laying them out in no uncertain terms does help.
(Also, I cannot speak for other Americans, but I am reasonably well up on the history and progression of leftism over time.)
I definitely hear this, and I generally stay away from conversations that polarize issues and people. I believe in unification and I am not into 'othering' people who don't think like me.
However, it must be stated that the extreme amount of focus on 'The Left' is a direct result of how much power they hold over everyone else. Globally.
Universities, Hollywood, most mainstream publications and social media platforms, and now the spread of ESG social credit scores within most governments, banks and other corporations...are all being structured around harmful and destructive leftist dogma. They use censorship and identity politics as a way of holding onto that power. Meritocracy is being replaced with overtly racist and sexist policies. Personally, I don't care what colour my pilot's skin is- I just want him/her to be adept and knowledgable and good at their job. It is getting dangerous for all humans to be forced to exist under the oppression of this inane and inhumane ideology.
When the people with power deeply believe that any means justify the end, we had better all be paying attention.
We've been down this road before. We know how much death and destruction lies at the end of it. We'd best be having conversations as preventative measures before we get too much further down that road.
Also, if "Americans don't even know what the left is" that is a bad sign. It means the nonsense ideology has become so normalized and entrenched as to not be distinguishable; it's become the very water the fish are swimming in.
Maybe they learned this from banks? The ranch I live on was once the property of very wealthy and successful business owners. A couple who owned some of the best wineries in California. Due to a one season where some of their grapes were destroying they lost some money. So an attorney at the bank slithered up to them and suggested a bank loan, which they didn’t need. The offer was enticing so they took the bait.
In small print was a clause: “the bank decides when the grapes are released from cold storage for sale”
The bank decided.....They decided to release the grapes when they were rotten and worthless bankrupting this beautiful family’s business.
This happened in the 80s when their kids were all growing up. At least the parents had their kids to care for them because they ended up on food stamps and welfare.
Steal and make mine! The Marxist decree!
That is horrifying! Did the bank make a lot of money from this?
Bank of America also tried to pull this on my middle-class friend who immigrated from Mexico and did really well for his family. They tried to steal his home by offering him a refinance deal.
This is all quite enraging.
That's nothing. When the FHFA took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it sold many mortgages to third party lenders at discount rates. Although much of the lending was toxic, there were also huge numbers of customers who never missed their payments, yet still saw their houses sold out from under them at unpublicised auctions at discount rates leaving them in negative equity- often to a division of the lender itself or one of their corporate friends.
As far as I'm aware, it wasn't widely reported. I only know about it because a few small content creators on YouTube published online at a time when the algorithm didn't prevent viewers from seeing their work. A few brave judges denied standing to the third parties in local courts, but as a whole it went largely unreported as a governmental cronyism immiserated American homeowners in a quiet national scandal.
Coincidently, it's incredibly difficult to find details on this subject on most search engines or browsers. You really have to know what you're looking for in advance.
God forgive me for what I would do to anyone who did that the me and mine.
Ditto. Whatever politics dictate people may think about Jan 6th, there was a little known article released by Reuters in the aftermath which showed that of the key instigators, no less than 119 had either lost homes or businesses in the aftermath of 2008. Having seen politicians avoid helping them because of 'moral hazards' whilst simultaneously arranging a taxpayer funded bailout for big banks, it's easy to see how they might have seen DC as an existential threat and Trump as a potential saviour.
I'm not saying I agree with them on the latter point.
I'm mostly a civic libertarian now- and have long since become politically homeless here in the UK. My dad was American. If I ever reactivated my American citizenship, I would probably vote libertarian, although I don't agree with all aspects of economic libertarianism.
My main point would be that most of the Western Advanced Economies are in massive need of dynamic overall of government. The problem is that most people don't realise just how salient Jerry Pournelle's quote about Iron Bureaucracy is. It's almost impossible for amateur politicians to get rid of an entrenched civil service bureaucracy, but it might be possible to reallocate them to become more efficient, useful, and most important of all, get them serving the citizens rather exerting rule over them. It would require a very deft touch with incentives.
The best place to start in the US would probably be switching to a PAYE system and rationalising all welfare payments into a single negative income tax system. This would remove the welfare income deadzone. This would mean that 90% of citizens would never have to talk to the IRS for most of their life. In the UK, most employers tend to somewhat overpay PAYE taxes as a means of never having to deal with the Inland Revenue. Most people tend to get a nice little cheque in the post once a year- their tax refund. It's usually not that much, unless you've changed jobs.
https://www.niskanencenter.org/universal-basic-income-is-just-a-negative-income-tax-with-a-leaky-bucket/
After what I have seen happened to a few friends, this does not surprise me one bit
Forgot the link
https://www.chateaustjean.com/chateau-and-gardens/history/
Idyllic.
A little dirty secret is that many of these wineries in Napa and Sonoma get their grapes from the San Joaquin valley. That is why they lived here in the San Joaquin valley several hundred miles away from Napa.
This is just one of the wineries my friends The Merzoians owned. Named after his wife The other winery equal in size was named after his sister in law. Grapes were grown here in the valley at their old ranch where I now live. We own part of it with their son who managed to hold on to part of this ranch.
Sounds lovely. My wife (girlfriend, at the time) and I took a trip up Sonoma and down Napa in '02. we liked Sonoma much more. Also, there was a winery called Viansa that we loved. I don't think it's there anymore, at least not under that name.
Of course! Millions and millions of dollars. These people were worth about $100 million.
Sounds a bit like the Royal Bank of Scotland scandal. Because of the levels of toxic debt on their books during 2008, they instructed managers servicing perfectly healthy businesses to put their business customers under managed loan provisions, with extortionate fees. They then proceeded to sell the businesses at auction and buy them themselves at rock bottom prices, or asset strip them. The whole fiasco made business-mindful Brits incandescent with rage. The Scots used to have a great reputation as bankers. As with the Enlightenment, the Scots were key to the success of the entire British Financial Sector.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/rbs-leak-leaked-files-bank-destroyed-customers-businesses-for-profit-project-dash-for-cash-a7353906.html
Their GRG division made £1. 2 billion in profits in a single year- 2011.
Fascinating, thank you! At least they got busted! Here in the states banks are doing this and in silence. And most people are in shock this is happening.
This is precisely why I want to leave Canada, and why I'm determined to resettle in Japan, there's none of this funny business out there, especially towards us foreigners. I intend to grow some grapes and tomatoes and potatoes, just as a hobby and to save money. I don't know as much about that stuff, but my partner knows a ton (she's a farmgirl, who knows about farming, whereas I know about berries, meats and so we're a pretty good match).
Hate the commie creed, screw 'em. Got no use for them.
I hope this works for you, brother. I sure sounds nice. Good luck!
Thanks and same to you, hope it all works out for you.
Family is here in NY state, so I am stuck in one of the least free states in the U.S. Our governor actually LIKES concentration camps.
Shit that's rough, reminds me of life herein Onterrible/Ontario. It feels like a camp, which is why I'm hungry to leave.
Ontario is arguably worse. Especially with Herr Castro lording over everyone.
The left isn't one uniform thing. Might appear so due to most of it being appointed, co-opted, bought and sold like everything these days. Same as the right.
Worker owned factories have been tried, and still are. But it's hard for them to be competitive, both due to unethical competition and lawfare.
The left is a complex phenomenon resulting from the interplay of a variety of movements and social forces. It both is, and is not, one thing, depending on the level of analysis. but I get your point.
I do not doubt the issue of lawfare and other unethical practices. That should be dealt with somehow. The solution, though, is not to allow those to continue and simultaneously keep the redistribution engine going. That is the worst of both worlds.
That's not true. Some sectors, like electrical goods, are fiercely competitive- but anyone could set-up a branded T-shirt company. Mondragon is the largest worker owner cooperative in the world. When they were forced to shutter their electrical goods division, they shed 3,000 jobs- but were eventually able to rehire all but 60 of the original employees.
I didn't claim it's impossible. I'll refrain from having a current opinion on Mondragon since I didn't know about it, haven't really looked into it, and it also seems like a rather special case.
I did claim it's hard, I'd say very hard even in the best possible conditions. It's against ruthless competition, including multinationals who tend to become monopolies and laws that generally favor big business. It's also harder to cooperate than being dictated, at least with currently prevailing mindsets. Especially if we add trying to be ethical; among the workers themselves, and into choosing where to get needed materials/tech from and sales practices.
It's funny: one of the Bible's Ten Commandments is "Don't steal", yet the human mind is adept at rationalizing almost anything as "not stealing" when it obviously is. I think it's even written somewhere in the income tax code, that it's "voluntary". Kinda like when a thief sticks a gun in your face and says, "If you voluntarily give me your wallet, I won't shoot you."
Yes!
I have heard that thing about the tax code. I suspect the courts have ruled that "voluntary" refers to how you file, revealing your info, etc., not to whether you have to pay taxes or not. Total scam either way.
https://dawnfrench.substack.com/p/the-fascinating-truth-about-the-16th
I think this sort of thing is a good line of attack in a larger all-fronts effort. Personally, I prefer my own newly chosen exist-and-build front. Together, we will slowly erode their edifice until one day, our happy descendants will frolic in its dusty ruins.
Marxism, socialism, communism, fascism, progressive-ism, state-ism and all the rest are born from one innate ideal. That is to curtail and destroy freedom for the citizen. All of these are various methods of control freakism. Even capitalism could make the list if it becomes perverted enough.
Most people, myself included, have never had any true freedom and therefore it is difficult to know what we are missing. And government is there to always make sure we don't.
Are you able to tell me what country you are in?
It’s about envy, not compassion.
And narcissism. Let's not forget the endless opportunities to virtue-signal, to cram more food into the bottomless gullet of the narcissistic dragon within.
Marx & Owen we’re tools of the industrialists to subvert republicanism:
https://theresearchofmilesmathis.substack.com/p/karl-marx
https://theresearchofmilesmathis.substack.com/p/friedrich-engels-and-robert-owen
No time to read papers. Can you summarize?
Marx’s mother’s family were extremely wealthy and influential industrialists, and married into the Philips family. Also related to Cohens and Rothschilds. Marx’s wife was from wealthy aristocrats. The stories about them being poor are not believable.
He was in fact bankrolled by his wealthy industrialist uncle to subvert the proletariat and to control the opposition to those wealthy industrialists.
Now, I take no issue with honest commerce. But that’s not what most humans are being repressed by.
The issue is the force & fraud used by the extravagantly wealthy class of global monopolists to prevent any competition from the rest of us.
And that is what Marx’s purpose was. Fraudulently protecting his family’s monopoly on resources and the means of production.
"Now, I take no issue with honest commerce. But that’s not what most humans are being repressed by.
The issue is the force & fraud used by the extravagantly wealthy class of global monopolists to prevent any competition from the rest of us."
—It takes a while for us conservatives to realize that—we're so accustomed to reflexively defending business against the onslaught from the left. But I did come around eventually.
Have you read Marx's poems to Satan?
No, but I’m not a fan of either Marx or satan.
Me neither. Check this out. (It's short.) IMO, it explains a lot! https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/08/murray-n-rothbard/marx-loved-satan/
*They* may claim to want worker-ownership of the means of production, however that specific claim is a little more than a means to network, propagandize and recruit.
Reality dictates that workers are generally responsible for showing up and working their 8-10hour daily shift.
Ownership, is in stark contrast, a 24 hour, on-call position, upon which everyone downstream depends and holds to account. The owner insures the weekly paychecks exist to exchange for those daily shifts.
*They* reject objective reality in exchange for non-specific, circular ideobabble and don’t want to work at all for anything.
*They* aren’t motivated by ambition, by accomplishment or by merit.
*They* are motivated primarily by envy and jealousy.
‘They* covet that which they falsely perceive to be entitled, thus
eventually they covet that which is yours.
I am faced with a problem, though. All my knowledge, training, experience, and analysis tell me that the left are dangerous, and that we mustn't forget that for a moment. But it is also becoming clear that we have even greater enemies who are neither left nor right, but simply out for total dominion for themselves and submission (and population reduction) for us. And so every time I am compelled to write about the left, I have to decide whether to forebear in favor of looking for solutions and ways to exit and build a new world, so we can all escape our would-be overlords. (Granted, those would-be overlords probably mostly have leftish instincts, but still, they are a different animal.)
100%.
I write rather passionately about the first part of what you said here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/unintentional-monsters
And the second part here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/redistribution-deadly-sins
And I add a few more sins to envy…!
You have inspired a new Bumper sticker idea:
Be a Maker, not a Taker
Love it!
We don't put any stickers on our car at all, otherwise I would totally buy one. (I guess I could put one on the fridge in the garage.)
I put them on magnetic backing so they are easily removable
😎
Definition of Socialism- what’s mine is my ne and what is yours is mine.
Yes, exactly! That is their distributive premise—that the tribe has a claim upon your stuff.
I write about that here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/transitioning-children-is-another
It's the communist mindset. We have to force you to be what we want you to be. You'll be our slaves.
It is indeed. And not just the communists. We should be wary of anyone who needs to impose their way of life on others. Persuade, sure. But force? Never good.
The irony is it would be a lot easier to set up a worker owner factory if not for governmental regulatory barriers introduced over the past 70 years in virtually every advanced economy. Government requires a whole legion of specialist workers to meet its requirement. Mondragon was set-up in 1956. It's a Basque cooperative which employed 79,00 people last time I checked. They are best construed as a form of community capitalism. Both the CEO and the senior financial grades earn five times as much the median employee, but are lauded as heroes in their community, paid in psychic profits.
The irony is it would be impossible to set-up such a business these days. It would be incredibly difficult to set-up Isthmus Engineering- and despite press releases to the contrary, they were actually founded in 1980. They only employ forty people.
One again, government is the culprit. Well color me shocked.
Lol.
1. Workers are setting up co-ops, more than ever before.
2. Workers who have been underpaid for decades lack personal financial resources to establish or purchase an existing business, which makes doing so difficult without other resources that are mostly not available. Or the vulture capitalists shutting down the established business simply refuse to sell it.
3. The silly "Socialists will steal everything" rhetoric has grown tiresome, especially given it's usually hauled out by people whose only contact with the subject has been through media. That, in turn, is a cobbled together fairy tale that invariably ignores all the successful instances of socialism to focus on instances of authoritarianism that were at bottom no worse than those occurring under Capitalism on a regular basis. Like this essay.
4.
You and others' obsession with the left is becoming a turn-off, just when we - of all stripes - need to be uniting. The joke is Americans don't even know what the left is.
I have some sympathy with your point of view. A few years ago, I would not have. I have become aware that there is a far greater threat, and that ultimately, we do need to unite against it.
Still, there are fundamental moral problems with the entire ideological underpinning of leftism, and these are things that human beings do need to become aware of and move beyond. Many are, and laying them out in no uncertain terms does help.
(Also, I cannot speak for other Americans, but I am reasonably well up on the history and progression of leftism over time.)
I am glad you chimed in!
I definitely hear this, and I generally stay away from conversations that polarize issues and people. I believe in unification and I am not into 'othering' people who don't think like me.
However, it must be stated that the extreme amount of focus on 'The Left' is a direct result of how much power they hold over everyone else. Globally.
Universities, Hollywood, most mainstream publications and social media platforms, and now the spread of ESG social credit scores within most governments, banks and other corporations...are all being structured around harmful and destructive leftist dogma. They use censorship and identity politics as a way of holding onto that power. Meritocracy is being replaced with overtly racist and sexist policies. Personally, I don't care what colour my pilot's skin is- I just want him/her to be adept and knowledgable and good at their job. It is getting dangerous for all humans to be forced to exist under the oppression of this inane and inhumane ideology.
When the people with power deeply believe that any means justify the end, we had better all be paying attention.
We've been down this road before. We know how much death and destruction lies at the end of it. We'd best be having conversations as preventative measures before we get too much further down that road.
Also, if "Americans don't even know what the left is" that is a bad sign. It means the nonsense ideology has become so normalized and entrenched as to not be distinguishable; it's become the very water the fish are swimming in.
🔥
If we don’t know, then please explain it to us. Don’t just say, “We don’t know.” That’s a cop out.